Project Updates - Platform Cooperative Development Toolkit
April 2020
Summary of Activities
- Start of implementation of tool library
- Directory/Map
- Accessibility design crit
- Design and implementation of individual profile creation
- Design of search/filter flow
- Planning next co-design steps with CoRise
March 2020
Summary of Activities
- Launch of resource library
- Directory/Map
- Continue refinement of profile creation flows
- Filter taxonomy design
February 2020
Summary of Activities
- Implementation of map using Django
January 2020
Summary of Activities
- Co-design
- Resource Library
- Refinement and development of the resource library
- Accessibility testing
- Further UX/UI design refinement
- Development of visual elements
- Design System
- Refinement and development
- Accessibility testing
- Further design refinement
- Directory/Map/Index
- Sketching
- Technical exploration
- Co-design chats
- Co-design chat synthesis (WIP)
- Labour platform hub
- Labour platform tools
December 2019
Summary of Activities
- Co-design
- Resource Library
- Development
- Further UX/UI design refinement
- Development of visual elements
- Design system
- Development
- Further design refinement
- Directory
- Labour platform tools
- exploration into scheduling tools
November 2019
Summary of Activities
- Co-design
- Planned activities and recruited for the co-design potluck
- Ran Co-design potluck at the conference
- Coordinating co-design efforts with partner co-ops (CoRise, SEWA)
- Resource Library
- UX/UI design
- Conference
- Keynote presentation
- Tech panel presentations -
- Co-design and cooperatives
- Open and ethical source development
October 2019
Summary of Activities
- Co-design
- Planned activities and recruited for the co-design potluck
- Coordinating co-design efforts with partner co-ops
- Resource Library
- UX/UI design
- Expanding screens to multiple viewports for responsive design
- Development of resource importer
- Design system
- Supporting volunteers in contributions to the website
September 2019
Summary of Activities
- Co-design
- Continue to coordinate co-design efforts with partner co-ops
- Resource Library
- Synthesis co-design chats
- Definition of IA and taxonomy
- UX/UI design
- Definition of minimal release features
- Development
- Website updates including changes to the conference page
August 2019
Summary of Activities
- Co-design
- Coordinating with new coops to start co-design process (Suara and Equal Care)
- Continue to coordinate co-design efforts with CoRise, SEWA, and Cataki
- Resource library
- Second round of community co-design chats to gather feedback on the wireframe prototype and taxonomy
- Continue with wireframing of learning commons
- Website
- Sent out survey to gather feedback
July 2019
Summary of Activities
- Website
- Launched: https://platform.coop/
- Resource Library
- Sketching and initial wireframing of the learning commons
- First round of community co-design chats with members of the platform co-op community, to seek input on input and ideas for the learning commons
- Creation of actionables based on co-design chats
- Co-design
- Continue to coordinate co-design efforts with CoRise, SEWA, and Cataki
June 2019
Summary of Activities
- Website staging site is up and being finalized for release
- Learning commons preliminary sketching
- Labour platform preliminary sketching
May 2019
Summary of Activities
- Website development continues for the initial release
- Learning commons
- Planned the UX strategy for the Learning Commons
- Conducted a horizon scan of other learning platforms for the Learning Commons
- Co-design
- Continued planning co-design sessions with partners, and developing specific activities to do for the embedded co-design efforts
April 2019
Summary of Activities
- CMS selection
- Refinement of website designs
- Completed the UX and UI of the pages
- Start of website implementation based on initial scope
- Connecting with project partners about co-design process
- Submitted Research Ethics Board proposal for approval
- Developing co-design activities
- Initial collaborative meetings with project partners
March 2019
Summary of Activities
- Website work
- Created visual design for the pages across the website
- Created style guide for website UI system
- working on Research Ethics Board proposal for co-design with partner
February 2019
Summary of Activities
- Start of embedded co-design with partner co-ops
- Website work:
- Refinement and iteration of wireframes and information architecture
- Created copy deck to collaborate on content across the team
- Communicated and met with logo designer to align on visual design efforts
- Start on the visual design system
January 2019
Summary of Activities
- Prototype of Platform Coop site
- Focused on:
- Building the information architecture of the website
- Prioritized features and pages based on content feasibility and website survey done with the community
- Created wireframes for mobile and desktop viewports
December 2018
Summary of Activities
- Design of Beauty Services website
- Design of Platform Coop site
- Navigation menu suggestions https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yTBELKwdS8cCXcgFYFjUxZFzObztEwQMxpaDFvHugIY/edit
- Sketches:
- Landing page call to action on desktop and mobile: https://files.inclusivedesign.ca/s/Aevh5AtK9aYR8Ks
- Navigation on desktop and mobile: https://files.inclusivedesign.ca/s/RYTNbxKH4q90cPX
- Alternative navigation on desktop: https://files.inclusivedesign.ca/s/dCOpbSeL5Q2JEyB
- Search on desktop: https://files.inclusivedesign.ca/s/EQNpNCiVdpf1l0z
- Wireframes:
- Desktop landing page: https://files.inclusivedesign.ca/s/44qlvRc0eVL4YDn#pdfviewer
- Mobile landing page: https://files.inclusivedesign.ca/s/e2Cjtr8aZ7ShmQd#pdfviewer
- Exploration of Netlify CMS resulted in decision to use WordPress for the site development
November 2018
Summary of Activities
- Two day co-design event centred around the creation of a scheduling tool and labour platform, with beauty workers intending to form a new co-operative
- Two day co-design event with women currently part of the SEWA Federation centred around the creation of a governance tool and learning commons
- Design of the new Platform Coop website
- Research into technical components that can be used for the Kit
October 2018
Summary of Activities
- Completed Project Deliverables graphic based on feedback
- Gathering contacts and feedback for platform.coop site co-design
- Developing survey questions for platform.coop site co-design
- Working on a detailed roadmap for the project
- Initial mapping of co-operative tool features based on the needs of the partner co-ops
- Exploration of Netlify CMS for new project website
September 2018
Summary of Activities
- Initial design sketches of Project Deliverables graphic:
- Michelle and Dana met with Tais from Cataki to communicate the current Toolkit plans and status
- Co-op Requirement Mapping
- Decisions on where to focus the project energy
- Logistics Platform
- Distributed Governance Tools
August 2018
Summary of Activities
- First of regular series of checkin meetings
- Established mailing list as best internal communication method, combined with wiki for open information sharing
- Discussed re-design of existing site (platform.coop) as next step, with a soft launch (re-worked navigation and new look) on October 15
- Michelle and Dana met with Namya from SEWA to plan upcoming on-site co-design meetings
- on-going conversation to share co-design ideas and plan best approach
- SEWA needs a basic site to share information - need a simple and cheap hosting solution
- The full team met with Mundano from Cataki, Brazil to discuss design and development requirements for the Catadores (recycling collectors)
- Gathering partner co-ops needs/requirements, mapping these out to identify commonalities (and differences)
- Continuing research on existing co-ops and platforms
- First mockup sketches of platform.coop re-design
July 2018
Summary of Activities
- Launch Meeting
- Meeting with SEIU-HCII and the ICA about the CoRise Cooperative
- Discussions with CoLab, Loconomics, and Sharetribe to discuss potential collaboration/use of platforms
- Research into existing platform cooperatives
- Setup Project Infrastructure
- Initial user experience mapping—starting a coop
- Initial technical mapping of the labour platform's components
Description
In July, the IDRC started formal work on the Platform Cooperative Development Toolkit project. Our activities this month focused on outreach and discussions with prospective project collaborators, technical and user experience mapping, and the establishment of shared design and development infrastructure for the project.
Among others, we had discussions with CoLab, Loconomics, and ShareTribe regarding the possibility of jointly developing open source tools that would be included in the toolkit's labour platform and governance tools, and implementing existing platform services as "scaffolding" to help bootstrap other aspects of the labour platform. On July 20, Colin traveled to Chicago to meet with the SEIU's Healthcare group and the International Cooperative Alliance to assist them in the early stages of designing a technology platform for the CoRise Cooperative.
The initial stages of our design process for the Toolkit followed a explore, map, share cycle in which the project's design possibilities are creatively explored, maps of potential user experience workflows are sketched, and technical components are elaborated at a relatively high level of abstraction. These works in progress are shared on the project's open wiki for feedback and refinement. In particular, our design work this month included:
- Research and "cooperative analysis" of existing platforms and cooperatives
- Sketching initial user experience maps that look at the toolkit from the perspective of different users—particularly prospective co-op members, founders, and supporters. These maps are intended to help map out the design problem space for the project, and are intentionally provisional and lo-fi during at this early stage of the project's design in order to quickly explore different approaches and ideas.
- Mapping out the relationships among technical components of the project's labour platform
- Examining the existing open source tools and platforms that may be available for us to use or integrate into the Toolkit
In addition, the essential collaborative infrastructure for the project's ongoing open source and development was also set up, including an issue tracker (Atlassian's JIRA) for tracking tasks and bugs, a new GitHub organization for sharing source code, and a mailing list for discussing technical and user experience issues.